29 Buckingham Street,


                 Cambridge, Mass.,


                        Nov. 9, 1906.


Dear friend,-


                I have read your letter with inter-


est and am sorry that the perpetual pressure 


on me, at the age of eighty-two, largely about 


other people’s affairs, will prevent my reply-


ing fully.


        As to your question: I should say that 


there is no incompatibility between the life 


of the dreamer and the reformer and I should 


think that any reader of Thoreau, like your-


self, would feel that especially in this new 


issue of his works which gives us inmost 


reflections.  The same is true of Mr. Alcott, 


as any one will see who reads in my “Part of 


a Man’s Life” the chapter on “The Transcenden- 


tal period” of his part in the attempted rescue 


of Anthony Burns.  Then when we go back to 


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Jesus Christ himself, we see the two qualities 
combined in the highest degree, so high that 


he seems to most people who call themselves 


Christians, a mingling of God and man.  I think 


that He certainly comes nearer and indeed more 


profoundly valuable, when viewed in [strikethrough] this [/strikethrough]  a more hu- 


man light [strikethrough] than [/strikethrough] through the steady tendency of culti- 


vated minds.


        I hope that this may meet in some degree 


the point you raise; in the mean time, [sic] thank 


you for writing me. 


                 Cordially yours, 


        Thomas Wentworth Higginson [signature]